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Monday, July 13, 2015

Pope: "Labor - Lodging - Land." Capitalism save yourself !

Evo Morales present pope with hammer and sickle Jesus

by Sean O'Torain

We, the
organizers of this blog, have always explained that the Catholic church is
the main church of capitalism. It has more than 1 billion members. It has an
estimated $150 billion in assets, and this is leaving out its worldwide physical infrastructure
and priceless works of art worth billions. It has tens and tens of thousands of
full time organizers. Popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, nuns etc. Think about
how many Catholic churches, schools, buildings and properties there are in your
area.

Over centuries
the Catholic church assisted sections of the European colonial and capitalist
powers, especially Spain and Portugal, and it itself participated directly in, the
looting of the wealth of Latin America and the slaughter of its peoples. It
participated with its blessing and physical structure, its symbols, its crosses,
its full timers, intimidating uniforms etc, its threats of "hell"
unless its ideas and orders were obeyed, in the slaughter of and enslavement of
tens of millions of the indigenous people of Latin America and of African
people brought from Africa as slaves.

More recently whenever an opposition to
the pro capitalist policies developed within the Catholic church, known as
Liberation Theology, the Catholic hierarchy, of which this so-called pope
was a part, worked with US imperialism in crushing this movement and in the
murder of many of its members. Now this pope comes crawling back to Latin
America to so-called apologize.In their
confusions millions of workers and peasants greeted him. But they made clear
that they were not unthinking people. Morales the President of Bolivia met him
at the airport. Morales was wearing a white shirt open at the neck and a dark
jacket bearing the photo of the revolutionary Che Guevara. He was met by
many wearing Che Guevara T-Shirts. Many of the people who turned up with
Morales up to greet him also wore Che Guevara T Shirts. Bolivia's
President presented him with a crucifix carved into a hammer and sickle
background. You could see the restrained rage on the pope's face as he had to
accept it or ruin his tour from the beginning. That is one present that will
not get pride of place in the Vatican. Well done Senior Morales. The importance
of symbols has not been lost on you. In Bolivia he
said the following: "I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offense of
the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native people
during the so-called conquest of America." Now you have to be very careful
when you hear a man with a position of power in such a huge organization speak.
Every word is carefully examined before hand so as no hostages are given to
fortune. Look at this one. He does not say there was a conquest of Latin
America he says there was a "so-called conquest". Yes giving himself
and the church a bit of wiggle room there.

Of course there was a conquest and
this was carried out with mass slaughter and with the Catholic church assisting
in this mass slaughter. And the other thing. When he was apologizing for this
"so-called" conquest and descending in his huge jet to the poverty
stricken countries of Latin America he did not bring back any of the gold and
wealth that his organization and its associates, Spanish and Portuguese
colonialist stole in this conquest. He left that at home in Vatican city securely
protected by the Swiss guard. Talk is cheap. But to go on to
other things. This pope has recently made a major statement on the world
situation. He criticizes "unbridled capitalism," not capitalism
but unbridled capitalism. He says that "unbridled capitalism is the
dung of the devil." He is not you see against capitalism but
"unbridled capitalism." Again the carefully studied words. Just like
the Catholic church is not against poverty. Poverty it says will be always with
us. Not always with the hierarchy of the Catholic church and the
capitalist class it will not. So he is not against capitalism only
"unbridled capitalism."

This pope has also said that the non stop
wars of the last decades are but the "fragmented third world war." This pope in
his recent statements has also criticized those who say climate change does not
exist. Global warming he says "is a major threat to life on
earth," and "climate change is a crisis." The investment arms of
the Catholic church are being called on to campaign for disinvestment from the
fossil fuel industry. How many members of the Catholic church know that their
local church which they visit regularly and to which they give their hard
earned dollars and cents have investment departments handling billions of
dollars.

These investment departments have been in discussion with major
capitalist organizations such as Exxon Mobile etc to try and convince them to change
their ways. It is like a human being trying to convince a snake not
to eat a mouse. Not only can they they not communicate but the snake
only exists because it eats mice and other small creatures. At an Exxon
Mobile annual meeting a Vatican spokesperson asked the CEO of that company
about its policies on climate change and called on him to get "an expert
on this issue on the board". 90% of the world's scientists say there is
climate change and global warming and that life on earth is threatened and the
best the Catholic hierarchy can do is ask the mega corporations who are
responsible for this to get an expert on their boards!!!! They already
have experts on their board, experts in making profits, and that is what their
boards are for. The CEO answered the Vatican's spokesman by saying: "We on
purpose choose not to lose money." No ambiguity there. To hell with life
on earth. Profits rule okay. You can see how
seriously this pope is taking the crisis of capitalism, his system. He is
calling on it to pull back from its excesses so it does not destroy itself and
life on earth.This is what these statements are about. He and the more
conscious wing of the Catholic bureaucracy are trying not only to get its
own house in order by trying to take on its sex crimes but also trying to sound
the alarm to capitalism that it is in danger of going too far and bringing the
whole system down around its ears. He is trying to save capitalism from itself.

Of course there is one thing they will not touch and that is their special
oppression of women, their belief that women are inferior and cannot be allowed
to hold leading positions. This will give them a lot more heartaches in the
future. They are losing their base in many areas because of this. Think of
formerly holy Catholic Ireland now being the first country to vote in a
popular referendum for same sex marriage. This pope is
trying to learn some things from the past. When the Bolsheviks took state power
they generalized the crisis of the lives of workers and peasants into a few
short words, a few short demands. These were "Bread, Peace, and
Land." This pope was pushing his version of this when he was in Latin
America. His version is: "Labor, Lodging and Land." Not bad. The anti
capitalist movement could learn a thing or two here. What is our equivalent of
Bread Peace and Land, of Labor, Lodging and Land. We will have to work on this.
On the week
this pope was in Latin America world capitalism trembled. This demonstrated how
right he is to be worried about his system. The Chinese stock market
plunged, the New York Stock Market had to be closed down as it was plunging,
the Greek Euro crisis continued, United Airlines had to ground its fleet, the
detailed information of over twenty million Americans was hacked into and this
information stolen. Even the head of the FBI was hacked into and his
information stolen.

Capitalism managed to recover from this stumble for the time being. But
there will be another and another and at some stage the entire system will
plunge. This is what this pope is worried about. When this happens there will
have to be a revolutionary organization of tens and hundreds of millions to
decisively and ruthlessly choke the life out of capitalism and establish an
international democratic socialist world. If there is a world of unimagined
wealth and security for all can be established. If there is not capitalism will
cling on and as if it does it will, driven by its mad criminal lust for profits
and power, destroy life on earth as we know it. And this will include Vatican
City and all the other cities and peoples of the world.